Coil handling apparatus



Aug. 26, 1969 P. w. CARPENTER 3,463,410

COIL HANDLING APPARATUS Filed Dec. 21, 1967 INVENTOR.

MW- #iii United States Patent O1 ice U.S. Cl. 242-79 4 Claims ABSTRACT FTHE DISCLOSURE A device for handling vheavy coils of metallic stripmaterial on which the coils of strip material may be placed on oneposition, easily shifted to another position substantially normalthereto, and then unrolled therefrom with no intermediate handling toafford minimum handling before eventual use.

Background of the invention Sheet steel, copper or other metallicmaterials are increasingly available to the user in small and easilyhandled coils or spools of material that as a rule vary from thirty tofty inches wide. The coils of sheet material are rolled in a continuouslength and they are commonly made to attain a diameter somewhat lessthan the width of the material, although they are in no way limited tosuch dimens1ons.

,Such metallic coils are relatively easy to handle in comparison toun-rolled sheet material, however they still are understandably heavyand cumbersome and thus they present a problem in handling and uncoilingfor eventual use.

A common expedient in the past has been to insert a crane-mounted rotarymandrel into the axial opening of a coil of material whereby it may belifted, moved, and then uncoiled according to the demands. Although thismethod is reasonably effective, it is slow and dangerous and it requiresthe constant skilled services of several trained operators to properlymove a coil of material from its source of supply to a point of use.

Summary of the invention This invention is therefore directed to anapparatus of the type which is adapted to receive a heavy coil ofmaterial and move it into a position it may be readily uncoiled for use.Most important, a single, unskilled operator is suicient to effectivelyoperate the device, and if desired,

it may be easily adapted for automatic operation.

Brief description of the drawing A better understanding of the devicemay be obtained by reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

FIGURE l is a perspective view of the device of my invention in aloading position;

FIGURE 2 is a schematic drawing of the device in a` loading position asit receives a roll of material from an inclined supply line; and

FIGURE 3 is a schematic drawing of the device as rotated 90 to anunrolling position for uncoiling the material strip.

Description of the preferred embodiments 3,463,410 Patented Aug. 26,1969 2 of the drawing, or it may otherwise be lifted and placed directlyon the roller bed 14.

Inasrnuch as the bed comprises a series of freely moving Vrollers 14, acoil of material supplied thereto may be easily moved over the upperplane of the rollers 14 against the vertical rollers 16 until stoppedthereby. The rollers 16 similarly comprise a plurality of url-driven butfreely rotating elongate rollers spaced apart and meeting the rollerbed14 along an essentially arcuate line forming the base of a curvedsurface substantially normal to the plane surface formed by the rollers14.

The L-shaped platform 12 is arcuately curved around its outer portion toprovide a base for rotatable tracks 28 turning on means 32 and driven bythe rotating mechanism 34 which is in turn actuated by the motor 36. Amotor 36 "is preferably mounted on the base 10 and is actuated by meanssuch as an automatic or manually operated controller not shown to rotatethe platform an amount equal to about The elongate rollers 16 arepositioned in an essentially arcuate relationship to provide a broken,curved surface 01 cradle in which the coil of material may be carried. A-force pulling on a loose end 42 of the material to unwind it from itscoiled position will unwind the coil by freelyrotating it upon theelongate rollers and in the cradle. produced thereby. As the coil isunwound, it decreases in diameter and lowers itself onto an adjacentpair of rollers 16 having a lesser chordal dimension whereby it at alltimes effectively cradled between and contacted by at least a pair ofspaced rollers.

The elongate rollers 16 may be positioned symmetrically with respect tothe base 10, however it is frequently deemed of adavntage to include asingle additional roll 20 located above the plane of the other rolls,when positioned horizontally, against which a coil of material on theplatform may be drawn to give additional support thereto as the coilitself becomes smaller and lighter during the unwinding operation.

The rollers 16 may be manually rotated by means of a cranking means 48on the outboard ends of one or more of the rollers. By turning therollers thus a roll of material cradled thereon may be rotatedsufficiently to permit attaching a clamping means to its loose end 42whereby it may be subsequently unrolled by simply drawing thereon asdesired.

Payolf from a coil is usually, but not necessarily, from the bottom ofthe coil over the edge of the highest roller and into a subsequentcrimper or other tool. The roll is unwound from its bottom so that themass of the coil is utilized to hold the coil down in its cradle ofrollers 16.

The device is formed to include a slotted holder 44 for a materialholding bracket 46 which is positioned above rollers 14 a distancesomewhat greater than the width of a material roll being handled. Thusfor a 40 inch roll, the bracket 46 might be positioned approximately 42inches above the rollers 14, while for a 36 inch roll, the bracket 46might be moved to a position appprolxima'tely 38 inches above the rollerbed. The bracket 46 is accordingly movably bolted at 47 or otherwisesecured to the slotted holder 44 so that it may be easily moved alongthe slots 45 to accommodate various sizes of material coils.

When rotated to a position of operation such as shown by FIGURE 3 of thedrawing, the apparatus is moved slightly past a horizontal position inorder that the roll of metallic strip on the rollers 16 will slide awayfrom the rollers 14 and not be contacted thereby in the un-rollingprocess. More important is the fact that the bracket 46 establishes anedge of the material as an exact guide edge or reference point for theplacing of subsequent crimpers or the like.

In operation, heavy coils of strip material advance on to the plane bedof the slightly inclined rollers 14 until stopped by the cradle orvertical surface provided by rollers 16 in the manner shown by FIGURE 2of the drawing. Upon actuation of the motor 36, the apparatus is thenrotated in the direction of the arrow of FIGURE 2 until the coil iseffectively turned on its side and supported in the cradle provided bythe rollers 16. The device is preferably rotated approximately 90 fromits original position whereby the rolls 16 are slightly displaced fromthe horizontal sufficiently to cause a roll of strip thereon to layagainst the bracket 46 and be thus spaced from the plane of the bedprovided by the rollers 14. The coil of material strip is then rotatedby a manual cranking means 48 on rollers 16 sutcient to slightly unwindthe coil and permit securing a clamping means to its loose end 42. Asthe material strip of the coil is fed to subsequent crimpers or otherprocessing apparatus, it is unwound from the coil without furtherhandling by the rotation of the rollers 16 which comprise the cradleWhile this invention has been described with reference to the embodimentillustrated in the drawing, it is evident that various changes may bemade without departing from the spirit of the invention. It isaccordingly intended that all matter contained in the accompanyingdrawings or described in the above description shall be interpreted asillustrative and not in a limiting sense.

I claim:

1. Material handling apparatus comprising a base, an L-sha-ped platformmeans on said base mounted for rotation about a fixed horizontal axisparallel with respect thereto, a plane surfaced roller bed on saidplatform, means rotating said platform about it s horizontal axis,

coil unrolling means on said'V platform comprising a plurality ofelongate rollers disposed about a curved surface normal to said rollerbed, each of said elongate rollers having an inboard bearing mountedadjacent the intersection of the legs of said platform whereby a coil ofsheet steel placed on said roller bed may be rotated with said platformso as to support the coil on the unrolling means when the platform isrotated about its axis.

2. Apparatus as defined in claim 1 wherein the curved surface formed bysaid elongate rollers is asymmetric with respect to said base to assuresupport of the material coil thereby when the material is beingwithdrawn from the coil.

3. Apparatus as defined in claim 1 wherein the surface formed by saidelongate rollers is curved to define an arcuate cradle for the supportof said material coil.

4. Apparatus as defined in claim 1 including means for rotating theelongate rollers to in turn rotate the coil of material supportedthereon.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,967,683 7/1934 Ostrander 214-12,417,553 3/1947 Jensen 214--340 X 2,767,933 10/1956 Spears 214--130 XGERALD M. FORLENZA, Primary Examiner F. E. WERNER, Assistant Examiner

